Single Review: Lady Gaga, “Bad Romance”

My feelings towards Gaga have been mixed. On one hand I find something about her inspiring. She has a certain magnetic factor that attracts you to her. She defiantly has an artistic side to her, I can’t deny the brilliance of “Paparazzi”, but I find that this artistic side of her’s is often overrated (along with other things about her). I find she tries too hard to be strange and different so that she can get attention. To be honest, I think she needs to get over herself.

“Bad Romance” is actually a good reflection Gaga herself, or rather her image. You can tell by bizarre vocal performance that this song is meant to be something wierd and against the mold. Put simply it’s not, at least not entirely. The song’s lyrics fail to be compelling (was another penis references really necessary?). Just like the Lady herself, this song tries too hard to different and strange (for example, she randomly starts singing in French). Eventually the slightly bizarre production and vocals give way to a familiar chorus that we’ve come use to during the past year in mainstream pop.

In fact, this song could have been named “Poker Face 2”. The chorus sounds almost identical, from the bombastic production to Gaga’s average singing. The “rah-rah-aaah” hook is also a little to familiar to the “mmmmmm-ma” hook of “Poker Face”.

Despite all these negatives, and some others I didn’t mention, the song still has a certain level of intrigue to it. Even with the bizarro factor of the song feeling phony there is still a bit of an allure to it. I have to also admit that when she says “I’m a free bitch baby” right before the chorus it’s pretty cool. In the end though the cons defiantly outweight the pros here.